It’s best to let Darren Criss describe the simply complex story of Maybe Happy Ending, the new musical he co-stars in with Broadway newcomer Helen J. Shen. “There’s what the story is and then there’s what the show is about,” the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning singer/actor/songwriter tells Billboard in an interview you can watch above.
“Those aren’t necessarily the same things,” he notes about the musical love story from Will Aronson and Hue Park, in which the former Glee star and Shen appear as obsolete Helperbot robots who meet cute and fall in love. “Thematically, it’s about two elderly people in hospice who decide to break out of the situation to go connect with their family,” says Criss about what sounds like a potentially dark theme.
And while that “grim, depressing construct for a show” doesn’t sound like the stuff of uplifting Broadway magic, Criss promises that the musical’s creators have somehow morphed that idea about the chilly march of time and hard lessons about love and life into a “really charming, kind little world” filled with Helper robots who are living embodiments of our iPhones and other digital assistants.
Because many of us imbue our inanimate digital devices with human-like qualities, sometimes holding on to them well past their best-by use date, Criss says the musical asks what happens when those objects become more like us?
Shen makes her Broadway debut in the play alongside theater/TV/movie veteran Criss, 37, after turning heads last year in the ensemble of the Off Broadway musical Teeth. She says one of the most exciting parts of performing in the show is the chance to take the lead in a completely new piece of theater not based on any existing intellectual property or a reboot/revival, but something that theatergoers have never seen before.
“It’s super overwhelming. The idea of it has been something that I’ve dreamed about my whole life,” says Shen, 24 of originating a character on Broadway. “And to have it come to fruition with this particular story, with this particular group of people I just feel… abundance. I feel so lucky and grateful.”
Both say they feel really blessed to be part of the show, with Criss noting that he has typically starred in “iconic” roles in his previous Broadway runs, including as Harry Potter in A Very Potter Musical, J. Pierrpont Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors and Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, among others. “These are things people know and love,” he says of those classics.
“[Which] were great, with or without me. I now go in there trying to do my own thing and make it my own and there’s the excitement of the challenge, but also the pressure of living up to a certain thing and wanting to do your own thing,” he adds about trying to find something of yourself in a well-known role people may have seen many other times with other performers. “Whereas this, it’s an open canvas, not only for us, but for the audience. They don’t have any preconceived notions. That’s the best thing about this.”
Because it is a new experience, audiences don’t know what to expect, which both actors say makes attendees really listen and sit up in their seats to take in all the nuance of the show that also heralds the Broadway debuts for creators Aronson and Park; it began its life on stage in Seoul, South Korea in 2016 and was later produced in Japan and China as well.
Maybe Happy Ending, directed by Michael Arden (Parade), is open now at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway.
